Ottawa’s internationally-celebrated wine writer Natalie MacLean
is looking forward to the Christmas season and some special gatherings.
“I am already anticipating my favourite part of holiday entertaining,
which is uncorking great bottles. I literally run my fingers over them
thinking about which to serve, just as some folks love to go into bookstores
and touch the books,” says Natalie.

Unlike
most of Ottawa’s self-proclaimed wine aficionados, Natalie actually
holds down day jobs as a wine writer, speaker and judge. A graduate of
Algonquin College’s sommelier accreditation program, she is a member
of the National Capital Sommelier Guild, the Wine Writers Circle and several
international wine societies. She notes wryly that, “my unswerving
goal in life is to intimidate those crusty wine stewards at fine restaurants
with my staggering knowledge.”

With credentials such as being named the World’s Best
Drink Writer at the 2003 World Food Media Awards in Australia as well
as winning the 2003 and 2004 James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards,
Natalie certainly knows her stuff when it comes to wine. In addition to
writing for numerous food and wine publications, she offers a free, award-winning
weekly wine newsletter featuring wine picks, articles and humour.

Natalie confesses that neither herself nor her husband Andrew
are particularly fond of cooking, so one of their favourite holiday entertaining
strategies is to meet friends at a restaurant that has a relaxed atmosphere
and great food. “Beckta and Juniper are two of our favourites. We
do, however, love to host dinner parties at home, with about eight people.
We find a group this size is ideal for conversation. While we usually
have the meal catered, the part we enjoy the most about entertaining at
home is that that we can crack open our best bottles of wine,” says
Natalie.

In planning a meal for a special dinner during the holidays, Natalie explains
that their strategy is based on the fact that “we love anything
that goes with wine and won't overwhelm it. I know this is like buying
shoes or earrings first and then the outfit, but for us, wine is a way
to start building a meal. We enjoy great dishes that are savoury without
being too hot or spicy, such as game meats along with seasonal produce.”

When asked about her childhood holiday food memories, Natalie
replies with a smile, “eating too much candy!” A native of
Nova Scotia, her holidays were spent in Cape Breton among family. “I
remember things as being very homey with delicious, traditional meals
prepared by my grandmother. One thing that stands out in particular in
my mind is her amazing biscuits. They were like clouds, and then we melted
butter on them,” she reminisces. A special holiday dessert memory
she cherishes is that of homemade fudge. “Looking back through the
eyes of six year old, I can envision licking the bowl, the spoon, the
drips on the counter, and finally getting to have a piece of the fudge
as soon as it had set.”

The children in all of us can perhaps empathize with Natalie’s
less pleasant holiday dining recollection, that of being served “green
veggies of any sort –
leafy ones, long ones, balled up ones –
just about any kind; I hated them all.” She’s quick to point
out that her taste buds have matured in the intervening years.

Not surprisingly, Natalie’s suggestion for an ideal
hostess gift over the holidays is “a great bottle of wine. People
should never be intimidated about giving wine, even to a wine connoisseur,
since it's really the thought that counts.”

Natalie’s own Christmas meal will feature turkey and
trimmings, but not prepared by her. “I’m very fortunate that
I can put my husband in charge of cooking the turkey –
it’s a very symbiotic relationship. “I don’t do turkey,
I do wines for turkey,” she explains.

Who among us wouldn’t welcome some advice from Natalie
when we venture out to select the perfect bottle to accompany our own
holiday feasts?

World's Best Drink Writer Enjoys Cape Breton
Pedigree

By Frank MacdonaldThe Oran September 2003

This past August, wine and spirits writer, Natalie MacLean visited the
Glenora Distillery researching an article on North America's only single
malt distillery. For the writer whose travels have taken her around
the planet in pursuit of the world's finest wines, this was a trip back
home for the daughter of John MacLean of Mabou and Ann Estelle (MacDonald)
MacLean of Baddeck, who is the only Canadian nominated for the World's
Best Drink Writer Award in 2003. She is currently in Australia where
the recipient of the award will be announced later this month.

"Like all good Cape Bretoners I was born in Toronto
where my mother and father had to go to meet each first before returning
to Nova Scotia. We returned to Whycocomagh and lived there a year,"
Natalie explains. Following her parents separation, Natalie and
her mother, a teacher, lived in Antigonish and Sheet Harbour before finally
settling in Lower Sackville.

Spending
her summers at her grandparents' home in Baddeck, Natalie MacLean took
advantage of the Gaelic College to learn how to dance and pick up a smattering
of Gaelic, and pick strawberries. "I excelled at strawberry
picking," she adds.

"Eventually I became quite serious about the dancing
as there were no strawberry-picking competitions. When I was 13 to 17,
we went to Scotland each year to compete in the world championships, my
best showing was when I was 17 and placed fifth after three men from Scotland
and one woman from the US. I also started to teach dancing in my basement
when I was 15. I photocopied handmade notices and took them to the
principals of the elementary schools in Lower Sackville and asked to pass
them out in the classes. Before I left to work on my MBA at Western
University, I had 300 students and five teachers working for me, and was
able to put myself through university without debt."

So how does someone who excels in the Celtic art of dancing
eventually find her way into the pages of international magazines featuring
food and drink? One could say it's no great leap at all, claiming
that wine and spirits is just another Celtic art. But what brought
Natalie MacLean to the attention of the international wine industry was
a series of fortunate opportunities.

"I never developed a taste for beer or hard spirits,
and developed a strong distaste for the gawd-awful glass of wine I was
offered at Christmas and Easter each year. But then I started drinking
wine when I met my husband Andrew (and have not found a reason to stop
since). We lived in Toronto after graduating from the MBA program and
went out to eat almost every night since neither of us could cook. Andrew
liked wine with a meal and so I started too," Natalie explains.

What began as night course in Spanish for Natalie and her
husband, Andrew, soon became too much work to be fun, so the couple switched
to an entry-level sommelier program at George Brown College. They went
with their instructor on a wine tour of northern Italy and became hooked.

In 1996, the couple moved to Ottawa where Andrew works in
the high tech industry, and Natalie went on with her wine studies, completing
all four levels for a sommelier certificate at Algonquin College.

"But not with writing in mind. Andrew and I continued
to go on wine tours for vacations, the only type where you don't end up
fighting," she says.

"Then we had our son almost five years ago, and in
a haze of postpartum sleep deprivation, I wondered around Loblaw's grocery
store and picked up the now-defunct President's Choice magazine.
They had beautiful food photography, but I wondered why there was no wine
column.

It turns out later, they did run a regular column, but that
issue just happened not to have one. I called the editor and asked if
she'd be interested in an article and she said yes, and asked had I published
elsewhere, so I said yes thinking of my high school newspaper and we went
from there."

Getting a regular column in the President's Choice
magazine gave Natalie the confidence to approach other publications.
The response was positive enough for her to consider a career change.

"I decided not to return to my high tech job after
my maternity leave was over and eventually I worked my way into several
publications."

Then friends began requesting copies of Natalie MacLean's
articles which led to the idea of developing her own website where her
scribblings could be accessed by interested readers. "I started
my newsletter with about 200 wine nuts here in Ottawa and in other cities."

There are now thousands of wine lovers in 36 countries who
read Natalie's weekly e-newsletter which is free. "I send the newsletter
because I love the feedback and often get story ideas this way."

In May of this year, her newsletter, Nat Decants,
was named one of the three best food and wine newsletters in North America
at the James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards in New York, considered
the Oscars of food and wine writing.

Word of the newsletter and the website, a one-stop location
for articles, information, books, and monthly wine suggestions, spread,
bringing people from around the world and a variety of backgrounds into
that forum for wine tasting and appreciation.

"For instance, I'll get a group of folks from an Australian
wine tasting club all subscribing in succession. One gentleman,
who is blind but wants to become a sommelier in the U.S., says mine is
the only wine publication he can read because his specially-equipped computer
reads it aloud to him. I get such a wide and varied background of people
subscribing: the storm water reservoir manager in Tulsa, somebody from
the IRS, customs inspectors, the emergency night nurse in Saskatoon, and
on and on. Sadly, one young woman with whom I had e-mailed back and forth
died this spring and her mother e-mailed me to tell me and thank me because
her daughter so loved wine. It hit me as both sad and strange how people
become connected without having met."

While
Nat Decants brings together a world of wine lovers, the large number
of subscribers to the newsletter as well as visitors to the website creates
an ideal forum for promoting more than just wine. Natalie MacLean's
website also promotes a list of monthly charitable activities within the
wine world where people can enjoy the fruit of the vine as well as helping
humanitarian causes. And her charitable intentions reach far into
the future. "I provide the humanitarian service of making wine
lovers around the world happier, and eventually, I will be donating my
liver to science," she adds.

"In terms of the effect of my newsletter, all I can
say is that I repeatedly throw myself on the flames of self sacrifice
each time I recommend wines because my favourites sell out quickly at
my own local store."

On one occasion, Natalie MacLean's newsletter recommended a fairly pricey
wine, Mission Hill Oculus at $35 a bottle, available only from an
agent and with a minimum order of one case at $420. The agent sold
10 cases the morning her newsletter went out.